- Commences Fight Calibration of Navigational Aids in 24 Airports
NIGERIAN airspace Management agency (NAMA) has said significant strides have been made in the last 18 months to ensure safe flights in and around the nation’s airspace contrary erroneous reports making rounds about its equipment being obsolete.
NAMA in a statement yesterday said the agency has in the last 18 months embarked on an aggressive upgrade of navigational infrastructure in strategic airports in the country, like the installation of Cat II Instrument Landing Systems /Distance Measuring Equipment (ILS/DME) in Kaduna, Lagos, Kano and Port Harcourt airports.
The agency also stated in the same vein, installation of Doppler Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range (DVOR) is ongoing at Maiduguri airport while that of ILS/DME is also in progress at Benin airport. Upgrade of facilities in other airports is to follow soon.
This clarification is coming after a newspaper publication with the title “Flight Disruption Looms over Obsolete Navigational equipment†(The Guardian, Tuesday, December 4, 2018) wherein the author attributed alleged imminent “massive flight delays and cancellations†during the yuletide to “near obsolete navigational facilities at airports nationwide.â€
According to the airspace agency. the writer goes further to allege that NAMA has done nothing significant in the last 12 months in the area of equipment upgrade.
“We see the above allegations as totally erroneous and misleading especially when viewed against ongoing efforts by the agency in the area of infrastructure upgrade across major airports in Nigeria. There is also the need to put things in proper perspective as the above insinuations are capable of sending the wrong signals to our teeming airspace users as well as the flying public, ” NAMA reacted.
The air space managers further stated that work has reached an advanced stage on the installation of Cat III ILS in Lagos and Abuja. Already, a team of NAMA engineers are currently undergoing Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) of the CAT III equipment in the United States of America in preparation for its takeoff by January 2019.
Ahead of the yuletide, agency announced that it has commenced a routine calibration of navigational facilities in 24 airports across the country.
It said when completed in two weeks’ time, the calibration exercise which is targeted at putting all navigational aids in optimal capacity would ensure that the facilities generate precise and accurate signals to guarantee the safety of air navigation in the country. Also to be calibrated and commissioned are the newly installed ILS/DME facilities in Lagos and Port Harcourt airports.
